Just Keep Swimming
by srufan
Summary: What happens when Tom can't sleep and accidentally interrupts B'Elanna's very private holo-deck program? My one-shot epilogue for Blood Fever


_Be careful what you wish for._

Such cryptic words from the most infuriating woman he'd ever met. For Tom Paris, women of all colours, species and creeds were infuriating but the feisty, furious half-Klingon running Voyager's engineering department was in her own special class.

Did she have _any_ idea what it had cost him to resist her? The physical ache he felt at having to turn away what he wanted most?

Because it wasn't really her, he realized, and somehow the sting of that hurt the most of all. It was the projection of Vorik's _pon farr_ aggression into her. Did that mean, he thought with a moment of horror, that he'd really been attracted to Vorik? Not that he was one to judge anybody's preferences - look at Kes and Neelix - but for Tom it was only adding to his confusion approaching it from that angle.

Sighing, he turned to his side in his bed. He'd turned down a game of post-dinner pool with Harry, claiming he didn't have the energy after the events involving B'Elanna, and thankfully Harry hadn't pressed the matter further, said they'd do it another night and he'd just practice his music in his own quarters. Tom didn't blame him, although he felt a little bad about denying his friend a social night they probably could have both used.

The truth was, Tom knew as soon as he had some of Sandrine's house specialty in him, he'd turn into a gushy teenager and want to talk about nothing but Lieutenant Torres, then become petulant and resentful when Harry called him out on what he felt was completely obvious to everyone aboard the ship.

He loved B'Elanna. Not just a little, a lot, and not just the kind that was meant for birthday cards and pilots looking to score on shore love. The kind that made him so confused, so utterly miserable, so aroused that those three sentiments often collide at rather inopportune times. But there was no denying it.

Tom Paris, rogue extraordinaire with the ladies, had fallen and fallen hard for Lieutenant B'Elanna Torres.

His reputation as an incurable flirt had come in handy there, as his treatment of B'Elanna meant that for most she was just another female who had caught his eye. And they were right, Tom did find her very attractive, particularly the way she looked when she was trying to remain serious while supressing some serious laughter. He'd even go so far to admit he'd fantasized a time or two about the way she looked in her swimsuit when the holodeck was running its Luau Resort program, so that any time she railed against him when they were in duty, he'd envision that suit under her starchy and drab Starfleet uniform.

None of them knew when he was in his room enriching his 20th century interests and knowledge base with the screen programs known as 'movies' about an English spy codenamed Double-Oh-Seven, he toyed with the idea of recreating such a program himself. The technology of the holodeck would turn him into the suave Cold War secret agent; he'd do a full story of it, villains and gadgets, an intriguing plot complete with the addition of a original holo-character named Anna Kling inspired by B'Elanna's face and body, forehead ridges and all. Okay, perhaps he'd have to turn the ridges into something exotic, like a secret society tattoo so it would fit with the time since the Klingon homeworld hadn't been discovered until at least a full century later. But Anna Kling would still be a brilliant mechanical engineer who knew all the right ways to arouse him with a single look, who was his right and left hands when they got in a jam before she went about seducing him in some remote little cabin in the mountains of Switzerland. After they'd saved the world together, of course. Double-Oh-Seven had his priorities after all.

The idea of it made Tom smirk a little, as he drummed his fingers on his torso. B'Elanna would probably laugh in his face, snap at him that she wasn't the type to need traditional human courtship trappings like flowers or chocolate or pretty words. Well, the chocolate maybe; Tom had discovered that Harry and B'Elanna shared that particular weakness, but the rest she'd just brush off as weak feminine nonsense. Tom always got the sense that was the Klingon part of her trying to protect the human half that was so scared of being too close to people. As temperamental as she could be, Tom knew there was a very vulnerable woman underneath all the Klingon cursewords she spat. He'd seen it when she'd observed Kes dealing with her hormonal drives as she went through her Elogium phase, the almost maternal way she dealt with Vorik despite his -ahem- attempt to proposition her.

'The hell with this,' Tom muttered, feeling the blood flow in his veins a little hotter than was comfortable. Even now thinking of that pasty-faced little Vulcan nerd - another term from his twentieth century language studies - made his temper rise, mostly because his chain of thought linked Vorik to B'Elanna and the events of that day. Rising he schooled his thoughts away from B'Elanna as he made up his mind on how to clear his thoughts, at least for tonight.

He tossed on what he thought of as 'Paris-hours' clothing - a loose tunic with matching pants - before heading to the holodeck. He wanted to see what it'd be like to be that Double-Oh-Seven chap first before asking B'Elanna if she wanted to try it out with him. When he arrived outside the door, he keyed in his ID sequence, heard the electronic blip of the computer denying him access to pause the current program in use.

'Computer,' he announced, 'This is Lieutenant Tom Paris, ID four-eight-zero-nine-six-six. Requesting authorization to pause current holo-program.'

_*beep beep*_ 'Access denied. Holoddeck privacy feature activated. Password is required.'

'Computer identify current user.'

_*beep beep beep*_ 'Holodeck currently in use by Torres, Lieutenant B'Elanna. Program auto-run termination set for twenty-three-thirty-two.'

Tom looked at the panel on the holodeck. She'd already been in there forty-five minutes and he did not want to wait another forty. 'Computer, override privacy function, authorization nine-eight-four-one.'

_*beep beep*_ 'Override denied. Password is required.'

'Tricky little minx,' he muttered. 'What would she have programmed the password to be?'

_*beep beep beep*_ 'Password hint: Teepees are very bad Klingon word.'

Tom squinted a little in thought, then pursed his lips to keep from laughing - there were still a few security officers on the night shift at the far end of the corridor. He cleared his throat, spoke calmly and clearly. 'Tom Paris is a p'taq'

_*beep boop beep*_ 'Password is correct. Access ID?'

Tom stated his ID, wondering just what in the blue Ferengi hell kind of program she was running that required high-level prvacy features.

The moment he was inside he realized it.

They were still at the Luau Resort, but it was night-time, with a tropical moon hanging like a pearl in the automated sky. There wasn't a single other person, real or programmed around, not even a bartender or towel-boy standing by to wait hand and foot on her. When he glanced at the pool before him, crystaline and blue, he understood why.

B'Elanna was swimming with nothing but clear water covering her skin.

Tom stood frozen to the spot. For the first time since being a teenager he had no idea what to do when faced with the sight of a beautiful naked woman. His instinct was to turn around and flee, but his feet seemed to root him in place. He watched her arms pull through the water, swift and sure, her toes fluttering to make little waves that danced like diamonds beneath the moonlight. When she surfaced at the end near to where he stood, Tom suddenly found his flight instinct kicking in; it evaporated in a nanosecond when she surfaced, just enough so he saw the curve of her breasts without seeing everything, a most tantalizing sight to his throbbing libido.

He watched her smooth her hands over her dampened hair, sigh contentedly and realized exactly why she wanted the privacy shield enacted on the holodeck. Moving to leave, Tom made a left turn - and ran smack into a pillar of granite. The instinctive yelp, followed by the cursing at the sudden pain in his nose and forehead shattered the tranquil moment they didn't realize they were sharing.

'Son of a bitch!'

'What the hell are you doing in here!'

Tom pressed his fingers to his nose, turned back to see B'Elanna glaring at him, elbows resting on the stone lip of the pool apron so everything from her collar-bone down was still hidden from his view. Her eyes were like phaser beams, burning and intense, with that furious temper Tom had grown accustomed to as the sign of a good days' work of teasing her. 'Hi,' he said, for lack of anything better.

'What are you doing in here? I set the privacy password, you...' she trailed off in a stream of what Tom was certain was a series of unflattering Klingon insults. He raised his hand in reassurance.

'I cracked your password, I... I wanted to-'

'To spy on me, to take advantage of things I said to you in a moment of illness that was not my doing?' B'Elanna spat at him. 'Stupid human.'

'You're half human, you know,' he pointed out to her. 'Not your best way to get back at me.'

'Turn around, flyboy,' she barked at him, and Tom obliged her, staring at the pillar that had been his undoing. He closed his eyes as he heard the slosh of water, the _pat-pat-pat_ of her wet feet on the stone. Naked, was all he could think, B'Elanna was naked behind him and he was obeying her order to look away. Turn back around.'

Tom did so, saw she'd wrapped herself in a robe that clung suggestively to various parts of her body which did nothing to help abate his current state of mind. 'Listen, B'Elanna, I...'

'What?' She folded her arms over her chest, somehow feeling more naked now; he'd _seen_ her was all she could think.

'I wanted to say that...you shouldn't be embarrassed about what happened.'

'You broke my privacy shield, stormed in here to get your kicks watching me like I'm some kind of-'

Tom held up his hand, gave a little chuckle. 'I mean when you felt the pon farr projection from Vorik, when we were alone together in the caves...then...the...afterward...'

'Oh.' B'Elanna tucked a wet rope of hair behind her ear, swallowed tightly as she nodded once. 'Like I said before, it wasn't me.'

'Really? You're going to stick with that line?'

'It's not a line, Tom. It's the truth.'

'Keep telling yourself that, B'Elanna, and things are going to get ugly in here,' Tom replied; it did the trick, as B'Elanna threw up her hands in frustration.

'What is it you want me to tell you, Tom? That I felt something for you? Fine, I did. I did feel something for you, something I've never felt before and it scared me a great deal. But you-' she stabbed a finger in the air at him '-you're more interested in having fun with girls instead of feeling something other than pity for them.'

'Is that what you think?'

'Like I said, it wasn't me down there, and you felt sorry for me that I was going through something like that not of my own choosing.'

Tom opened his mouth, realized what she meant. 'You're right, Torres. I did feel sorry for you, but not just for the reasons you think.'

'Really? What were your reasons?'

'When you figure that out, you'll understand the whole thing.' Tom looked around, laughed a little. 'Swimming naked? I wouldn't have pegged you for a little dip in the pool like that.'

B'Elanna returned his smile, genuinely relieved the awkwardness had passed and the shields on her emotions were back at one-hundred percent. 'Chakotay recommends it for clearing the mind. He's not wrong.'

'Well then.'

Tom tugged his tunic over his head, noting the way B'Elanna's jaw dropped before she could stop herself. For a moment he imagined it was lust, born of her own volition and not residual projection from an outside force, that was glazing her eyes over. 'Mind if I finish off that privacy program? My head could use a little clearing, especially after taking a bash in the face like that.'

'Oh go jump off a space port, flyboy.' B'Elanna threw her hands up in frustration, stalking off to the women's dressing room but not before tossing her words over her shoulder, 'Next time you wanna do something like this, you better damn well take me to dinner first.'

Tom dropped his trousers, slipped into the water. 'You're one step ahead of me.'


End file.
